Note to UK members: That scenario doesn't apply to Telford or Milton Keynes.It is ethical to torture somebody in the classic "the nuke is about to go off in NYC" scenario,
One can assume that the subject has the power to tell people about the nuke in NYC without being tortured but chooses not to, condemning millions of people to death. I am of the opinion that such a person has forfeited the right to protection.
The problem as always is that the extremes are obvious - torture is not ok for a parking offence, but it is ok to save the lives of millions - but there is a huge gray area where things are not obvious. The desire is to simplify a complex question into a simple binary one - torture is ok or torture is never ok, but there seems no overriding reason why complex moral should be reducible to slogans. It may not be possible to formulate a scheme that determines the 'right' thing to do in every circumstance other than applying intelligence (or common sense) on a case by case basis.